Resident Evil 4 Remake is a great game. It's incredible just how much Capcom put their whole pussy into making this game be what it is and the fact that this can be in the same ballpark as the original is commendable in it's own right. It's fun, has some genuine surprises for people who have played the original to death, and still keeps enough about the gameplay of Re4 that I can feel comfortable saying that you could go with either version and get mostly the same experience.

However I don't think this game is necessary in anyway or a game that even should exist. The original Resident Evil 4 was a lightning in a bottle game. It was a mess of many development issues, years of failed prototypes(to the point that Devil May Cry spawned from the ashes of the versions of Re4), and was being tossed around by it's entire studio on what the game should even end up as. Despite all of that, it ended up being one of the most tightly designed, well balanced experiences a video game ever had and it permanently changed the landscape of the medium.

Resident Evil 4 could not be made again. All of it's qualities were a blend of 00's B-Movie edge, cathartic violent action, tight well balanced level design, a constant flow state with forward momentum always being preserved, and ridiculous out of nowhere breaks of the main gameplay loop.

I knew this game wouldn't be Resident Evil 4, the moment I met the merchant and the game alerted me to a quest were I had to backtrack and kill some rats in the area right before. I instantly picked up that this game could not have the gull to let the player leave it's tragically redesigned areas without you being suggested and pushed towards staring at the floor again to find fucking rats. All of it's "new" elements are unnecessary to the pure arcade fun of Resident Evil, and the few genuine improvements to gameplay like parrying are limited by a durability system that only serves to stop you from having too much fun or to be completely neglected when you upgrade and find other knives.

I don't even think this game is soulless. It would be disrespectful to the polish and effort that is on display for this game. It's just that it's Resident Evil 4 but with all of the rough edges sanded off. All of this effort went into remaking one of the most influential games of all time, that gets ported every single console generation. It's not like the original Re4 was stuck on the gamecube. Capcom has made sure that the original will live on. This also isn't me trying to take the game down or act like Capcom committed a betrayal, I already came to the fact that none of the remakes were going for anything that the originals had. I just felt that this was something necessary for me to get out there because it's an undeniable feeling I have with this game. I'm sure I'll come back to this later in my life and wonder why I ever thought what I thought. For now, this is what I have to say.

Atleast the Ashley redesign is cute.